Unwanted phone calls have always been a nuisance. Telemarketers, pollsters, wrong numbers, etc. distract us, wake us up, and interrupt us at inconvenient times. However, this problem has become much more acute in this time of cheap outsourced call centers and robocalling, combined with mobile phones that are always with us, may charge us per incoming call, and are increasingly our only phone in this new generation of cord-cutting.
The mobile industry and government have both been working on solutions to this problem with fairly poor results. The do-not-call list is not well enforced and, even when respected, filters only a portion of the total unwanted calls. Call-blocking mobile applications generally do a poor job of identifying which calls are desired and which are not. Applications that whitelist good callers filter out too much, sometimes even blocking return phone calls, particularly for callers that don't report their phone numbers via caller-ID or that have multiple phone numbers. For example, suppose a user calls their child's doctor and leaves a message at his office, asking for a return call. The doctor picks up the message via his office desk extension or from his cell phone, numbers the user may not have known before to whitelist in their call blocking app. In another example, a user may have someone who authorizes callers for them, such as an administrative assistant.
In order for call blocking to be useful, it must be able to support scenarios like these. Accordingly, the instant disclosure identifies and addresses a need for additional and improved systems and methods for enabling calls to bypass call-blocking functions.